Meet The Mumpreneur: Kid’s Teepee Designer Nuala O’Farrell

Every now and then, we come across something so gorgeous on Etsy that we just have to have it now, come hell or low bank balance. For a start-up business owner like Nuala O'Farrell, that is precisely the kind of customer that you want and obviously the right kind of product really helps. Mum of two (Ronan, 14 and Conor, 20) Nuala set up an online shop for her kid's teepee design company Maple and Spud on Etsy while she was still working as a secretary in a local school in Tipperary. Maple and Spud was intended to a be a part-time project, something to help satisfy Nuala's love of quilt-making and sewing, a skill she had picked up while living in Canada some years prior. That was February of last year but by the following September, the talented mum had no choice but to hand in her notice at the school permanently to meet the huge number of orders she had received from her online shop! Now working full-time from her home studio in Tipperary, Nuala says that her now grown-up boys are a great help with her thriving business.

"Conor (20) gets put to work sanding and cutting teepee poles while Ronan (14) helps packaging up the orders. If they want some money at the weekends, they have to earn it!"

Nuala will be exhibiting her beautiful Maple and Spud children's tepees at Permanent TSB Ideal Home Show in Dublin this April 15th - 17th and says she is so looking forward to it. We wish this mum every success for the future, not that she would appear to need it! Aren't the teepees absolutely gorgeous? See more of Nuala's designs over at her Facebook page. Join the conversation on Twitter @HerFamilydotie